Book review: The superlative city: Dubai and the urban condition in the early twenty-first century edited by Ahmed Kanna

"The Superlative City: Dubai and the Urban Condition in the Early Twenty-First Century." Ahmed Kanna. Harvard University Press. August 2013. --- In the last few years, the Persian Gulf city of Dubai has exploded from the Arabian sands onto the world stage. Oil wealth, land rent, and so-called informal economic practices have blanketed the urbanscape with enormous enclaved developments attracting a global elite, while the economy runs on a huge army of migrant workers from the labour-exporting countries of the Indian Ocean and Eurasian regions. In The Superlative City, contributors analyse some remarkable aspects of Dubai, such as the size and theming of real estate projects and the speed of urbanization. Elaine Housby finds that this will be of interest to anthropologists and architects alike.